We the People Stand up to Trump's Attack on the Environment

As a Columbia Riverkeeper member, you defend clean water and our climate. Here are five ways you take on the Trump administration:

We the People Stand up to Trump's Attack on the Environment

1. Sue to Protect Salmon on the Brink of Extinction.

Salmon are dying because the Columbia River is too hot. You took the Trump administration to court to demand an action plan to deal with the hot water crisis. A lawsuit brought by Advocates of the West, on behalf of Riverkeeper and allies, challenges the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) failure to make a plan to address hot water and protect salmon on the Columbia and Snake rivers. The federal district court ruled in our favor, but EPA appealed. Stay tuned for the latest developments in this precedent-setting case.

2. Challenge an Over-the-Top Proposal to “Relabel” Radioactive Waste at Hanford.

The Trump administration plows ahead with plans to “relabel” toxic and radioactive waste to cut cleanup costs. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Energy (Energy) issued new rules giving itself the authority to abandon storage tanks with more than 100 million gallons of high-level radioactive waste at sites including Hanford. If Energy won’t reconsider its short-sighted plans, we are prepared to challenge the agency in court.

3. Stop Plans to Legalize Dangerous Levels of Toxic Water Pollution.

People who consume the most locally caught fish—Native Americans, sport and commercial fishers, and members of some immigrant communities such as Asian and Pacific Islanders—face greater risk of cancer under President Trump’s latest proposal. EPA wants to roll back rules that protect people who eat locally caught fish in Washington state. Riverkeeper is working in solidarity with tribal nations that oppose EPA’s proposal. You guessed it: We’ll see the Trump administration in court.

4. Pivot When Columbia River Cleanup Funds are Slashed.

The Trump administration zeroed out funding for one of the most toxic areas in the Columbia River: the Bradford Island cleanup site. Although the government polluted the Columbia over decades of building and operating Bonneville Dam, the administration cut all funding for the Army Corps’ cleanup investigations. Fortunately, there’s another pot of money: the so-called “Superfund.” Riverkeeper is working in solidarity with Yakama Nation to restore cleanup funding.

5. Uncover Secret Fossil Fuel Funding Decisions.

Northwest Innovation Works applied to the federal government for a roughly $2-billion loan guarantee to finance the construction of a fracked gas-to-methanal refinery and export terminal at Kalama, WA. The Trump administration has resisted multiple Freedom of Information Act requests by Riverkeeper and refuses to provide timely information about the loan. You went to court to challenge government secrecy and get to the truth.

RIVER CURRENTS NEWSLETTER OUT

We the People Issue: How your Columbia Riverkeeper membership is promoting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the 50th anniversary of the seminal case Sohappy v. Smith; and annual financial report.